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Background Percutaneous‐transhepatic‐endoscopic rendezvous procedures (PTE‐RVs) are rescue approaches used to facilitate biliary drainage. Objective The objective of this article is to evaluate the safety and the technical success of PTE‐RVs in comparison with those of percutaneous transhepatic cholangiographies (PTCs). Methods Percutaneous procedures performed over a 10‐year period were retrospectively analyzed in a single‐center cohort. Examinations were performed because of a previous or expected failure of standard endoscopic methods including endoscopic retrograde cholangiography (ERC) or balloon‐assisted ERC to achieve biliary access. Results In total, 553 percutaneous procedures including 163 PTE‐RVs and 390 PTCs were performed. Overall, 71.3% of the patients suffered from malignant disease with pancreas‐carcinoma (32.8%) and cholangio‐carcinoma (19.0%) as the most frequent, while 28.7% of the patients suffered from benign disease. Many patients had a postoperative change in bowel anatomy (50.8%). PTC had a higher technical success rate (89.7%); however, the technical success rate of PTE‐RVs was still high (80.4%; p < 0.003). Overall complications occurred in 23.5% of all procedures. Significantly fewer complications occurred after performing PTE‐RVs than after PTCs (16.6% vs 26.4%; p = 0.037). Conclusion Beside a high technical efficacy of PTE‐RVs, significantly fewer complications occur following PTE‐RVs than following PTCs; thus, PTE‐RV should be preferred over PTC alone in selected patients.
Bokemeyer et al. (2019) studied this question.